Institutional organizations, such as public safety organizations, typically use specialized voice communication systems to facilitate group discussions. Voice communication systems are typically embodied as narrowband radio systems that support low-bit-rate digital or analog transmission of voice streams. An example of such a voice communication system is a Project 25-compatible two-way Push-To-Talk voice communication system that includes wireless and wired voice communication devices. The voice communication devices may be, for example, portable narrowband two-way radios, mobile radios, dispatch consoles, or other similar voice communication entities that communicate with one another via wired and/or wireless networks. Institutional organizations choose these types of voice communications systems because they provide high end-to-end voice quality and efficient group communication, use advanced cryptography, enable centralized logging of calls, and are associated with low delay and high reliability. In addition, institutional users are familiar and comfortable with the user interface of these voice communication devices.
To facilitate group discussions among, for example, public safety users, an operating user of a voice communication device may join a voice communication group, herein known as a talkgroup, wherein a voice transmission sent from a single voice communication device joined to the talkgroup is simultaneously received by all other voice communication devices joined to the talkgroup. Voice transmissions may originate from any of the voice communication devices in the talkgroup. Institutional users may also access multimedia content, for example, video streams or web sites. The bandwidth requirements of multimedia content are generally much greater than that required for a voice communication system. Therefore, to receive multimedia content, the institutional users may also use data communication systems that are typically embodied as broadband systems. Broadband systems typically support high-bit-rate digital transmission of data streams, including real-time video. An example of such a data communication system is a wireless data network that operates in accordance with the Long Term Evolution (LTE) signaling standard and that includes wireless and wired data communication devices. The data communication devices may be, for example, laptops, smart phones, PDAs, hybrid narrowband/broadband devices, dispatch consoles, or other similar portable, mobile, or fixed data communication entities capable of receiving multimedia data content.
Unlike talkgroups discussions on voice communication devices where voice sessions include one source and many recipients (herein referred to as one-to-many media distribution), data services such as web browsing and video streaming obtained on data communication devices usually have a one to one relationship for a given data session between a data source and a data communication device (herein referred to as one-to-one distribution). Accordingly, while a first user is independently accessing a data service on a first data communication device, a second user independently accessing the same data service on a second data communication device is likely to be unaware of the simultaneous use of the data service by the first user. For example, when two public safety users are independently and simultaneously viewing the same web page or surveillance camera, each public safety user is likely to be unaware of the use of the data service by the other public safety user. In certain cases, it may be advantageous for these simultaneous users to discuss the independently retrieved data content to, for instance, facilitate collaboration not otherwise possible and consequently improve the public safety users' response to an incident. For example, if two or more police officers are independently but simultaneously viewing the same live video of an incident scene, one police officer viewing the live video may indicate an object of interest that would have otherwise gone unseen by another officer who is also viewing the video from the same surveillance camera. In another example, officers independently and simultaneously viewing a map of an incident scene may collaborate on the best way to, for example, quarantine an area.
Typical data applications used on data communication devices implement a one-to-one media distribution model for session data, i.e., sessions have one source and one recipient. Moreover, data applications are typically specialized with regard to the features they offer. For example, web servers and browsers generally do not provide voice communication services. As such, these applications typically do not provide any means to facilitate voice discussions among a group of independent, but simultaneous users accessing the same data service. Furthermore, it is difficult to predict, a priori, which users will be viewing specific data content at a given time.
One way to enable voice discussions of data content independently and simultaneously accessed by users of data communication devices is to allow a user, wishing to discuss the data content with other concurrent viewers of the same data content, to broadcast such a request on an associated voice communication device. The broadcast may be sent on an “all call” voice talkgroup, heard by all voice communication devices, to request that interested users move to another talkgroup dedicated for discussion of the data content. The “all call” voice talkgroup may be preprogrammed in a scan list of the voice communication devices. One problem with this approach is the voice broadcast seeking collaborative viewers consumes precious voice system resources. The voice broadcast may, however, be missed by a user viewing the same data content if, for example, the user's voice communication device is powered off or the user is on another call. In addition, the voice broadcast may be a nuisance to those users who are not viewing the same data content. Furthermore, the user attempting to arrange the voice discussion is unlikely to know which voice talkgroups are currently available for dynamic discussion purposes. Simply dedicating a discussion talkgroup for every data resource that could possibly be accessed (e.g. every web site) is clearly impractical.
Outside of public safety applications, certain web-based consumer systems are known to provide a feature whereby users viewing the same web content independently and simultaneously may text chat about the content. Notably, this system is not appropriate for public safety applications, where discussions are typically conducted via voice on a two-way radio system, not via text on a data device. Web-based consumer systems are also specific to web pages, and are not inclusive of other types of data services, such as video surveillance.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method and apparatus for enabling on-demand group discussions among group-based two-way radio system users who are independently and simultaneously accessing a same data content.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.